Police get almost $50,000 in donations for unsolved homicide cases

The Des Moines Police Department has received almost $50,000 in donations to help solve open homicide cases, officials announced Monday morning.

The money, which comes from unnamed private donors, will be used only for rewarding people who come forward to provide information integral to solving open homicide cases, Des Moines police spokesman Sgt. Paul Parizek said.

"We are going to compensate you for valuable information" using this donation, Parizek said. "You stand to gain substantially, financially."

The police are working on 12 unsolved homicide cases from the past two years, including a fatal shooting that occurred outside Zion Lutheran Church, 4300 Beaver Ave., this weekend. A 19-year-old Carroll man was killed, becoming the city's 15th homicide victim this year. There were 13 homicides during all of last year in Des Moines.

The police department will decide on a case-by-case basis how valuable each tip is, Parizek said. He speculated about a best-case scenario: A witness to a high-profile homicide comes forward with detailed descriptions of what happened that helps police make an arrest and offers to testify in court; that witness could walk away with a four-figure dollar-amount as a reward.

"We (the police) are going to be the ones who gauge whether the information is good," Parizek said.

He declined to speculate whether the new money for rewards will prompt more people to come forward with information on homicide cases, but he said it's worth a try. For months, Des Moines police have said, many homicide cases remain unsolved because of uncooperative witnesses, meaning people who police say know what happened but won't provide that information to detectives.

City Councilwoman Christine Hensley said most of the private donors involved in this project do not want to be publicly named. The donated funds are available to the police department immediately, Parizek said.

Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie, City Council members, Police Chief Dana Wingert and other community leaders attended the Monday news conference.

City leaders voiced support for the police department's ongoing efforts toward solving homicide cases and responding to violent crime.

But they also said they're concerned about the high number of homicides in the city this year.

"This has happened too often," City Councilman Chris Coleman said of homicides in the city. "We live in a community that's much stronger than this, and we're going to give our neighborhood and our city back to its citizens."

Coleman and others said the donations for tips in unsolved homicide cases are just one step in curbing the problem of increased violence.

"We're putting the pieces in place, but it's not been enough," Coleman said. "It's not been enough because the issue driving these violence acts is not caused by the police or police work or city services; it's caused by changes in society."

He said he knows the increased violence has been on the minds of local faith leaders and others. He encouraged even parents to just keep a closer eye on their children, to make sure they aren't getting involved in drugs or street violence.

"This is not someone else's job to fix; this is your job," Coleman said. "We're fired up because it's happened in our neighborhoods, all around the city."

State Rep. Ako Abdul-Samad, D-Des Moines, who has advocated against violence for years, told a reporter after the news conference that he was there to support the police department and city leaders' efforts, but he said he also wanted to make sure people of color were represented at the meeting.

"We have to work together to get it done, but we have to be inclusive. One of my greatest fears is that, when the community sees this and looks around the room, you don't see people of color," he said.

Abdul-Samad agreed with the city council members in saying that the donations to the police department are "a great step" but that more needs to be done.

"What they're doing here is commendable; giving money to the police is a step in the right direction," he said. "This is a great step, we've just got to take more steps."